


That Child

by Minion_Energon_101



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dad Spy, Drama, F/M, Family Bonding, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, M/M, Psychological Warfare, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 06:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17441747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minion_Energon_101/pseuds/Minion_Energon_101
Summary: A former Spy laments on his life choices that lead him to being a family man over being a Spy, and what he'll potentially want from his life when his son starts talking to a stranger over a toy phone.Fantastic.





	That Child

**Author's Note:**

> I was influenced by a writing prompt I will link at the end, but do read this first part first.
> 
> The Spy is ambiguous and can be canon Spy or an OC if you want, though I did use canon Scout's name because I needed to solidify the family aspect. But this doesn't have to be canon Spy, as Jeremy is just a placeholder name. But this is most definitely an AU which means it can be canon Spy if you want, but this ex-Spy is just domestic!
> 
> Enjoy!

He hadn’t had a mental breakdown, or a major physical fit, in about two years and he was happy about that. After working years upon years for a less than desirable company and over two decades doing the job he was good at, it was nice to see he could function as a normal human being and have the life he was working for.

He was a Spy. An ex-Spy, really. And he’d been without the job for about five years, and counting, and was doing ever the better without it.

Being a Spy meant a lot of things and he was slowly losing his touch to what they were, but he kept the most obvious of minute details in mind. The planning, the scheming, the hiding, the backstabbing, the evidence scrubbing, the technology, the guns, the lives you’d take… it all came slowly in like pieces, but not in the order he’d learned them. He’d have to remember tragedy, then makeshift weapons, then blood, then murder to make that list; but it was best not to because that job had ruined his life.

Most Spies did not make it out of their job description alive, most Spies probably ended their lives with cyanide molars or heart-stopping injects triggered by a button stashed in a fake thumb. Or one of the many other SpyTech contraptions to give Spies the easy way out of capture and torture…

That or for the most cowardice way out, which is before your even truly captured and you die by personalized suicide tricks because you had a _hunch_ you'd get caught. Not having faith in your skills and killing yourself is truly below the belt if you asked him. But just having a standard issue Cyanide Molar Tech in the back of his mouth actually made him paranoid on the daily, especially when his son was offering to share harder candies like peanut brittle or jawbreakers to bond with him. So maybe he was a bit fearful of it, but he at least had no intention of cracking it during a challenge.

His son: the reason he’d given up that lifestyle and the reason he’d figured out how broken and how much of a shell he was compared to any well-respected man. The small ball of chubby, soft flesh unblemished by time and weathering effects of the world that had been completely unpredictable in his past mind. He had been a Spy, he wouldn’t have forgotten something as simple as a _condom_ and/or if the woman he’d had that night had mentioned the newly invented birth control pill she’d somehow required. But he had. And it was the only night he’d spent with her that he wasn’t sure they were safe. He should have been better than that, but life had a way of making sure he couldn’t remember that night or half of what he’d consumed that night before bedding the young lady. But he didn’t regret it, he had a son and a beautiful new life to finish out and to invest hope in.

His son was five, and he at about forty-four in two days. He had not married the boys mother or settled into the child's life as a permanent father figure yet; especially after he had purposefully left the young lady to be pregnant and alone, only to have overwhelming thoughts and to reevaluate his priorities before coming back with no job and a new purpose. He had taken her trust and threw it away after impregnating her and leaving her with no words, and coming back when the child was barely three months old with nothing but himself and no apology. He couldn’t -- at the time -- apologize for his actions, for he was still the man he had been while working as a Spy even if he was switching what he wanted to do with his life and willing to change. And that had made a huge fight break out that night, as she wanted an apology and him to become humble about the mistake; starling all the boys she birthed awake  and to sob silently in their rooms as it got ugly.

And he did make it out alive that night, no matter how much fury he’d scorned from this mother's wrath. He remembered settling down in a fold-out chair outside at the mother’s orders to not scare her children anymore after one had peeked out his bedroom door and reminded her why she couldn’t do it anymore. She found it admirable that he had come back, and what he had to give up to come back to them; but it didn’t save him. He had been a coward and he ran, she had immediately pegged him into the category of every other man she’d met and tried to forget he existed. She had confessed it was easier that way, and at least it’ll save her when it came time for all her boys to ask what happened to all their fathers if they haven't already. Her oldest, almost twenty-two years old, had long given up on his dad. The others were slowly losing hope in order if you go down the age line. Jeremy needed his dad, if not just for now.

Spy, silently, mused about how that was another form of cowardice but kept it to himself, as it was not her that screwed up _this_ time. People who are the same are attracted to each other, are they not? He felt amused, but kept it to himself as well as she was not in the same mood as he was.

Long story short: he was the boy’s father and was able to do what he needed to be a father, but he was not living with the family he had wormed his way into. At first it was because they couldn’t trust him and they barely had room in the big city of Boston with nine living under one roof; but soon it became mostly just about the rooming issue. After a few months of talking things out, scent therapy for his less than one year old son to help the child associate him with family, and living a few apartments down from them and slowly seeing a secret therapists after his mental shutdown to become a functioning everyday man, he was actually able to spend time with the family he was genuinely with because he wanted to.

He did not sleep with their mother -- they did not share a bed, nor the same house -- but their feelings were slowly budding back after the fiasco that happened. It was slow, with him being the first to ask about what they could become. She had not known, but knew her heart was mending from her forcing herself to not love or care for him after he left, it’d take time… if the feelings ever _did_ come back at all. But she had accepted his Valentine’s day gift as warmly as she did her son’s school made gifts, with a genuine smile as well. They were getting somewhere, slowly.

Her boy’s were a different story. Seven boys, older and rougher from the street teaching them how to be tough, who have had their fathers missing all their lives and finally getting one in the form of… himself. He’d be a bit disappointed himself, to be honest. But at least he has good Christmas presents and actually tries to be their for the boys; they may be too young to fully understand what he has done or how they truly feel about him, but they like him for what he’s worth. They’d always stick by their mother always and protect her and their brother over protecting him, but seeing this man cradling little Jeremy and loving being around has opened a small amount of respect. He’d never be their father, but he could at least be their for them.

Jeremy, his baby boy, was growing just like any other baby he’d ever heard of and that made him happy. Nothing unexpected was happening and as a new father, that was a relief. After the hormonal, scent, and vocal measures they went through, he truly felt something blossom in his chest. The mother had educated him that babies identified their fathers this way after birth in hospitals, as they were surrounded by many people, and the baby can pick out the mother from the crowd but not the father until the therapy. Sure, it wasn’t after birth, and the baby could already see late into his third month of life, but it was better than nothing and helped them in the right direction. He would kiss his baby boy every day after his son started to become more active with him and smile at him presence instead of staring straight through him.

“Pa!” He was pulled out of his thoughts and turned around at his desk to see his son running at him, dragging a rolling telephone toy with a smiley face on it across the floor. “Pa! Look out!”

He barely had time to push himself back against his desk to brace himself as the small, boney five-year old jumped into his lap and crushed his stomach as he curled up in his lap. The air was knocked out of him as he laughed, the small child trying to sit up without his help and ending up almost kicking him in the face as he flipped. He laughed after he took a deep breath and put his hands under the boys armpits to hoist him up to sit straight. He didn’t weigh much, but he was gaining height as he should for a five year old and had less wiggle room to not hit him or his father into something like a sharp desk corner. He’d scold him later, after he dealt with the brothers he heard making noise in the hallway between his and their mother’s apartments.

“Jeremy, what brings me the honor of your visit?” He laughed, accent thick from his lack of talking all day, but his son was just fine in understanding him. But he couldn’t complain as he was a foreigner in a land of Bostonians.

“Ma meet a guy trying to get rid auf a bunch auf old toys at work and took them auff his hands.” The blonde child said as he looked at the phone in his hand and pulled it up to his face. “I got this one!”

“Is that all you were allowed to get?” He asked, suspiciously. “Or did they tell you that was all there was?”

“Ma asked me first! No bats aur real toys. This one at least had batteries in it when she got it.” The Boston boy said and pulled the small smiling phone toy up into the chair with him and his dad, smiling.

Okay, at least it wasn’t like the last few times Jeremy had gotten beaten to the box of toys and had gotten nothing but a ball filled with string that _wasn’t_ a baseball. He had no qualms against the other boys, but the minute one hit age seven, they grew more greedy of the best items. And this was a chain event, starting out with the oldest and followed onto the second eldest. He knew how big families could function even though he’d never been apart of one till now, but his added income to their large family meant they didn’t have to be greedy or snatch before whatever they wanted became obsolete. They were still working on it.

“Well, I think it’s the best choice out of all the toys she got. Even if he’s being smug.” He pointed at the smiling face sticker and red glass nose decorating the telephones base. He pulled a face he knew would make his son happy. “What are you looking at, smart guy?”

Jeremy laughed and covered his mouth with his hand as his dad turned on him and pouted.

“I knew you’d take the side of another, but I never knew it’d be to a smiling telephone, _mon étoile_.” He leaned his head forward and rested it against the small child’s shoulder and made a fake sigh of sadness. “I thought I’d only lose you to the Red Sox’s, but never a _phone_.”

“Silly dad! The phones got nothing aun you. You tuck me in! You love me!” The blonde said and passed a glance at the phone at his ear, sticking his tongue out at his father’s tricks. “The Sox… we’ll see.”

“ _Mon Dieu_!” He whispered, feigning surprise. After a second, he let the silliness drop as he looked at his son with loving eyes. He hugged the small boy to his chest, squeezing him gently. “I love you, I don’t say it enough.”

“You say it everyday after school.” He complained, but leaned into his father's shirt to accept the hug. “I love you too.”

“Like I said... not enough.” And he just held his son for a little while longer. His pride and joy, the one thing that actually broke his years of years of Spy training out of him little by little. His heart, brain, and soul were not easily fixed or altered, but his son was helping greatly to shape his new world these past five years.

He remembered the first time he’d taken his son on a night walk, past his bedtime as a reward for behaving when he had gotten shots that afternoon to watch a neighborhood sports game, when his son had giggled and bounced in his stroller at the stars. He’d never stopped and actually stared at the stars above Boston until his son had asked why one star was so tiny compared to the circle of large ones surrounding it. Boston was more industrial than the places he remembered stargazing in, and had more light pollution, but it didn’t stop him from being astonished.

You never know what you miss out on in life until you’ve seen it through their eyes. Those innocent, unknowing eyes that held pure, unadulterated wonder.

He slowly let his son go and kissed his hair, feeling his boy raise up. When he sat with his back straight, he noticed the phone he still had against his ear. Was it currently going in his ear? Or was the boy playing a game of pretend?

“Who do you have on the other side of the line?” He prodded. “Am I interrupting a business call?”

His son put both hands on the phone and listened into the receiver, not making a single ounce of noise as the tiny, static filled receiver was muffled by his ear flat against the top speaker. He pushed an eyebrow up in curiosity as his son seemed to ignore him.

His son came back to him after a second later and just handed him the phone. “Mr. Red would like to talk to you, Pa.”

“Oh, and I take it Mr. Purple is suing a man for copying his homework?” He lightened up his tone as he took the toy phone in hand. The toy was surprisingly heavy for a small plastic toy. It barely was noticeable, but it felt study and the two ends for talking held a decent weight to it. Old Spy habits die hard and he almost wanted to whip out a magnet of sorts to test if it was an actual SpyTech device. But he knew better then to destroy children’s playthings on paranoia; God knows he’s already been through that enough for a lifetime.

“He said I best leave fah this.” And before the ex-mercenary could stop him, his son slid out of his lap and slowly rushed to the door of his office. “Tell me when your done, Papa!” The boy smiled innocently and seemed keen on joining his brothers messing up the hallways outside, taking off before he could be stopped.

That was beyond suspicious and he almost wanted to push himself away from the small phone on his lap. His anxiety was building up and probably for nothing, he’d learned his lesson early on that toys were getting more advanced over the years and a toy telephone with automated responses aren’t new. But it still didn’t bode well for him with all the possibilities of how wrong he could be. Ever since he’d left his Spy job and wiped all his past lives from the grid, he’d been paranoid and anxiety-ridden about a lot of things since he had made himself defenceless and put this family in harm’s way. His secret doctors he had a phone call away in New York had helped him into this hard part of life by separating him from the weapons and leftover defence mechanisms being a Spy made him feel safe to have. He had become a civilian. Sure, he had plenty of kitchen knives if he needed it and he knew hand-to-hand but… he had a family, he had a life, and job that wasn’t ready to cut ties with him if he so much as breathed in the _treason_ direction, he shouldn’t be paranoid. But he was. He had been called a coward so many times it was the only way he could describe these feelings.

The burning and deep feeling of cowardice.

He’s always been scared of his old job co-workers finding him, of finding the family he’d started and allowed to grow on him. The men and woman he’s worked with aren’t all above killing children and mothers, and there was a faint hope, but he feels he wouldn’t be forgiven and let off so easy. If it wasn’t her and her sons taken away, it would be himself and probably his son to keep him compliant enough until he’s at HQ. He’d endure Hell, and he wasn’t ready for it just yet.

He picked up the tiny phone and watched the thick woven cord that kept it attached to the box uncoil like a worm, tugging the small toys base closer to him in his lap.

He stared at the smiling face and brought the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

He swallowed all the spit that had accumulated in his mouth and waited for a response. The beige walls of his office reflected the light coming in through the opened window behind him. Cars honking from the streets below and people chattering were filtered put as the toy’s speakers boomed with a happy, high-pitched voice.

“ _911 is the number for emergencies_!”

He let out a breathy sigh as he let the phone fall from his ear, the happy voice ringing as it requested input by someone pressing its buttons. He leaned back in his chair and brought up his hand to scrub his face. Oh God, he needed a drag…

“ _... press 6 for a Happy Tone, press 7 for Laughs, press 8 for a game, press 9 for Happiness…_ ”

The happy voice was cut off by static and he jumped as a man’s voice took over the device.

“God damn, that thing is annoying.” A voice sighed into the mic and continued. “How are you doing, _coéquipier_?”

His heart stopped in his chest as he heard the heavy, husky French accent address him as his team mate. He frowned even more than he did before, mostly out of hatred as he thought about who’d put him in this position.

“You used my son to get to me.” He stated, picking the phone base up in one hand as he listened.

“ _Oui_. But it was really your wife, she trusted a stranger to give her toys for her sons.” The man said, like it was obvious who was to blame other then himself. “And who in the world doesn’t check the toy to see if it's okay in the first place? I assume she knows your a Spy by now…”

“She shouldn’t have to check for trackers and microphones, nor will she ever have to.” He turned the toy around and suspected as much as he saw all the inner working happening inside the plastic bottom. It had SpyTron T-095 engraved into it too, obvious and tacked on most likely at the last second.

It already made his son a breach in his security, his son was probably told lies or told to tell him sensitive information. He loved his son, but he was naive in his young age and possibly a threat to his own mother and brothers if he kept the toys. The… _toys_ …

“How did you know which one my son would choose?” He asked, but he figured the answer would be obvious.

“We didn’t. All toys are tracked until we figure out which one your son had, we were just lucky your son chose the one with the two way microphone.” He spoke and the sound of blowing air reached the receiver, signaling his old ally was smoking again. “He is a nice boy.”

“Don’t talk about him.” He swore and he placed the phones base on the desk. He shuffled through his desk drawers for something, the ear piece laying on his shoulder to balance to his ear.

“You have either yet to teach him not to trust strangers, or he has chosen to ignore you.” The Spy on the line said and waited for a response or swear in his direction. He got none, so he continues to put strings. “He praises you, he thinks very highly of you. He loves you…”

“You sound jealous.” He mumbles, picking up a box and undoing the hinges as he looked inside.

“ _Non_ , just curious.” The Spy said across the line, humming as he blew more smoke. “Your file says you left with an administrative signed pink slip and you asked for it, but your still being hunted by agents across all skill-levels even against our superiores wishes. How have you managed to keep them safe?”

“Just doing my best, that’s all I can do for them. I can’t move them, this is their home.” He slowly and silent pulled a revolver out of the case so it wouldn’t be picked up by the phone. “And so… what room are you in?”

The Spy on the other side of the line let out a nonchalant humm as if he hadn’t heard him the first time, but he knows he did.

“What room are you in?” He repeated harshly. He got up from his seat and checked the barrel quietly as he waited.

The Spy let out a laugh and a small snort was heard as he tried to keep his joy down low. “You want to see me so soon, _mon amour_? I’m on the sixth floor, I’ll be in the hallways waiting. Red wine, or champagne?”

“Balisong.” He huffed and holstered his gun inside his pants leg inside-out pocket and pulled a knife noisily from the desk to mask him hiding a gun.

“I hear you will not be indulging me tonight.” His unwanted stalker asked. “Well, tell Jeremy that Mr. Red said hello, _mon cher_.”

He cut the wire to the toy phone in anger, imagining the throat of his old ally downstairs in its place. Soon, he thought, soon. And why not throw the phone out the window too? That’ll help… and Jeremy wasn’t getting it back.

He hadn't had a mental breakdown in a while, and it looks like he'll have to wait till later to have one. He had a keep his family out of the spotlight of  _goddamn_ a Spy.

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone want to see a Spy fight? I do but I'm tired. :)
> 
> Inspired by: https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/181648998259/a-toddler-hands-you-a-toy-phone-ushering-that-you.


End file.
